The Digimon Kaizer's Loneliness
by Irhista Lhail
Summary: This is a novelization of an episode of 02. I would put up a spoiler warning, but hey, who =hasn't= seen this ep by now? Rated PG for some obliquely implied Kensuke which will probably become less oblique in the next (and hopefully final) chapter.


AUTHOR'S NOTE : This fic is a gift to my partner in crime, herongale. Well, okay, it's not a gift, it's payment for services rendered. What those might be are left to your imagination. This is a novelization fic. If you can't figure out which episode of 02 I am novelizing here ... why are you bothering to spend time in this category?

--Irhista Scetare Lhail

The Digimon Kaizer's Loneliness

Part I

For the first time in three years, the Tamachi Elementary soccer team was playing against Odaiba. There were several reasons for this vast gap between games. With so many schools in Tokyo fielding teams during the regular season, it proved impossible to allow every team to play against every other team every year. The year simply wasn't long enough. While Odaiba had a history of making the playoffs, the year before a combination of several graduating key players and a regular season schedule that seemed designed by an opponent of the team had conspired to exclude them. And, although Tamachi had won the championship the year before, that team had a history of not even entering the playoffs; Tamachi was correctly known as a school full of pasty geeks and spoiled rich kids, who either didn't like to go outside at all, or didn't like to get their pretty uniforms dirty.

The only reason ... the _only_ reason ... that Tamachi had won last year was Ichijouji Ken, one of the "pasty geek" crowd who had turned out to be considerably less of a pushover than most. And Ichijouji Ken had only shifted his attention toward soccer a year and a half ago.

So, although there were several reasons why there had been no game between these two particular schools for three years running, and there was a corresponding lack of concrete information on which to predict a conclusion, that didn't stop the spectators from betting on the outcome. Being that most of the spectators were students of one of the two competing schools or the parents thereof, the betting consisted mostly of who would be buying the ice cream after the game. The stakes weren't important, though, it was the spirit of the competition.

At first, of course, the trend ran strongly toward Tamachi. Ichijouji Ken was still on the team, and had proven to be just as dangerous to goalies so far this year as he was the last. However, as the Tamachi team arrived and no blue-haired star player came into evidence, a rumor filtered across the stands that he wasn't coming at all. The stories ranged from the (correct, as it turned out) rumor that he was shooting a commercial, to wild speculation that he had come down with influenza or had been hit and killed by a car (this story was started by a young teenaged fangirl who got her wires crossed and mixed up the younger Ichijouji with his deceased elder brother).

With Ichijouji elsewhere, the Odaiba faction began to hold out hope of winning. Die-hard Tamachi fans maintained that the rest of the Tamachi team were still championship winners, even without Ichijouji, and could still beat Odaiba. The Odaiba fans scoffed at this, saying that, without Ichijouji, the rest of the Tamachi team were the same sunlight-deprived intellectuals and soft mamas-boys who had lost during the regular season for ten years straight. If this game had taken place in Europe, it probably would have come down to bloodshed in the stands, in spite of the fact that the majority of the spectators were mothers, older siblings, and fellow students under the age of twelve. The Japanese tend to be considerably more reserved, however, and the dispute was settled by renegotiating the ice-cream-treat bets.

Nobody paid much attention to the small group of Odaiba children with stuffed animals on their laps - the crowds were big enough that nobody really noticed them at all, even when one or another of those stuffed animals spoke up. After the game started (still with no Ichijouji in sight), those stuffed animals cheered for the Odaiba team along with the children holding them, but the sounds of the crowds drowned them out.

Late in the first half, a lone cab arrived at the field and dropped off the missing Tamachi striker. No one seemed to be watching when he stepped out of the car (paid for by one of the advertising executives who couldn't be accommodating enough when it came to Ichijouji Ken), so he took a moment to scan the area and relish this brief instant of anonymity.

Ken claimed to love attention, especially to himself. Attention reaffirmed his own superiority, or so he told himself often. The worship of those around him was something to be desired, something to enjoy and milk for all it was worth. He told himself that he liked being recognized and whispered about. He told himself that the desire to blend into the crowd was just herd mentality, a genetic holdover from a time when the ancestors of humans concealed themselves from predators by grouping together in large numbers. He didn't need that concealment anymore, that protection from predators. Ken told himself that he _was_ a predator.

Ken lied to himself a lot.

The instant of being blissfully ignored passed, and Ken heard his name being whispered through the bleachers. They were talking about him, mostly in low tones; this usually used to mean they were making fun of him, and sometimes it still did. A brief pang of fear metamorphosed automatically into contempt, so quickly and smoothly that Ken barely registered the first emotion.

It was stupid, anyway. They were all stupid. He was better than them, so why should he concern himself with what they thought?

Wrapped up comfortably in these thoughts, Ken adjusted his duffel bag over his shoulder and started to walk down the steps toward the field and his team. However, he stopped suddenly again, in shock at the sound of an obnoxiously familiar voice rising above the murmuring of the crowd. For just an instant, the air took on a dream-like, crystalline quality, as if Ken had suddenly shifted into the digital world without the benefit of a computer or Digiport; that was the only place he'd ever heard that _particular_ voice before, and the two were inextricably linked together in his mind. Scanning first across the stands, then across the field, Ken was just beginning to assume that he'd been mistaken when his gaze lit on a patch of cinnamon-brown spikes.

No, there was no mistake. _It figures._

Unconsciously, Ken's lip curled into a feral snarl. Was it not enough that he had to deal with the Digi-Destined in one world? Why did they have to pester him in the other one as well?

It took him a moment to master his annoyance, but he managed, and he felt the smooth camera-ready mask he normally wore slide back into place as he descended to the field. At one point, he remembered, he'd looked on the Digi-Destined as being an interesting challenge. Of late, he'd ceased to hold this opinion and wished they would just leave him the hell alone. The novelty of being opposed in his plans of conquest had worn off, and it was time for things to get back to the way they used to be, please and thank you. He wanted his safe retreat back, his personal private digital world where he never had to worry about encountering another soul. He'd been hoping for a few weeks now that the novelty of the digital world itself would wear off for the other children; it wasn't as if they could actually win against him, and losing all the time _had_ to get boring. He'd been hoping that they'd simply give up and stay home for a change, but no such luck thus far.

Reaching the field, he approached his team, aware of the whispers that followed him as he walked, like needles in his skin.

"Hey, Ken," said his coach. "We're really glad you could make it today."

"Sorry I'm a little late," he said, meaning nothing of the sort. "I had something to take care of first."

"Don't worry about it," said his coach brightly. "We're just glad you could make time for us at all."

Actually, Ken _almost_ hadn't come to the game. He'd had a long day already, he was tired, there were still things he wanted to do in the digital world before bed, and he knew his teammates would resent the fact that he'd shown up late. In fact, if his mother hadn't made such a fuss about the game, asking him for the thousandth time to quit soccer, he probably would have just gone straight home from the site of the commercial shoot. She'd listed as her reasons all the usual ones : the danger of a sprained ankle or wrenched knee, how much time it took away from "more important things" (such as what, she never bothered to mention, but Ken could guess), and the fact that the games took him all over Tokyo (along with her unspoken, underlying fear that something dreadful would happen to him while travelling, a fear Ken knew and scorned). Unfortunately, this time she'd also mentioned that she didn't like the soccer uniform, and that had been the clincher for Ken.

Ken was quite aware of the fact that he looked like a girl in it. He didn't have to be told. He wasn't exactly thrilled with this himself; he'd had some serious second thoughts about his decision to take up this particular sport upon looking at himself in the mirror wearing the Tamachi team uniform. However, he didn't like the implications of his mother's dislike, either. He knew it was childish and contrary of him to deliberately do the opposite of whatever his mother wanted, but in this case he didn't feel inclined to go against his instincts to thwart her.

This wasn't the first time, or even the most blatant, that she'd expressed her fear that Ken was going to turn out to be some kind of cross-dresser or outright homosexual. His hair, for example, made neither of them happy. She wanted him to cut it short, while he wanted it long enough to pull back into a ponytail in the summer and to cover his neck in the winter. This chin-length compromise was dissatisfactory for both of them, but it really annoyed Ken because _he_ was the one who had to live with hair in his eyes and tickling his face every time he moved. His choice of street clothes was another battleground, one he had finally conceded by the expedient of wearing his school uniform almost constantly. There was really nothing negative she could say about it, because the design was chosen by Tamachi Elementary, not Ken, yet he knew she thought it lacked a certain masculinity. He found it elegant to defy her using the very school she had gone so far out of her way to enroll him in.

So, she disliked his soccer uniform, because it made him look effeminate? Ken reacted to this by attending a game he'd had every intention of skipping, for no other purpose than to cross his mother.

"Is it all right if I put you in the game now?" asked the coach. The almost-worshipful expression on his bread-dough face was disgusting, and Ken briefly wished he had a whip in his duffel bag so he could remove it. Still, he'd rather look at his coach's stupid face than look at the dark envy on the faces of the other Tamachi children.

"If that's what you want," Ken replied, careful to prevent any trace of the contempt he felt from leaking into his voice. Despite everything, Ken knew he was still eleven, and this lobotomy victim had legal rights that he himself lacked. It was galling, but expedient to avoid rousing the ire of random adults.

There was a certain neat crispness to the fact that Ken was put into the game right as the second half started. Odaiba was up by one, but Ken wasn't concerned, and by starting right at the beginning of the second half, he could pretend that the first half didn't exist. He glanced around at his teammates. _Useless ... _

As Ken scanned the field, waiting for the whistle that would start the second half and contemplating his strategy, he got a look at Motomiya and was forcibly reminded of his earlier annoyance. And here he had managed to put it out of his mind for a few minutes ... oh well. He eyed the other boy, the _Digi-Destined_ boy, as both teams deployed, wondering if Motomiya had any actual skills.

A brief thrill ran through him when he realized that Motomiya was playing left forward and was coming to stand almost directly in front of him, no doubt preparing to cut him off. Would he be recognized as the Digimon Kaizer? He certainly recognized Motomiya, even without the goggles or the furry flame-painted jacket. He'd had Motomiya utterly at his mercy once, unconscious and injured, his Digimon chained up on the other side of a gorge and unable to protect him. Ken had spent a long time contemplating Motomiya while he slept, before he realized what he was doing and became disgusted with himself; even so, it would be difficult for him to miss picking Motomiya out of a crowd, after having watched him sleep for almost fifteen minutes.

It seemed the differences in Ken were sufficient ... either that, or Motomiya was suffering from not having gotten the same opportunity to study the Kaizer as the Kaizer had gotten to study him. Nothing was betrayed in Motomiya's expression but open friendliness, and Ken had seen nothing in the digital world to make him think the boy had the mental discipline to lie about his feelings.

"Hi, you must be Ichijouji Ken," said Motomiya unexpectedly, accompanying the words with a bright smile. "I'm Daisuke." Ken relaxed. Just another awe-struck fan ... the angry child of the digital world who fought him with such passion was nowhere in sight. Ken favored Motomiya with a tiny quirk of his lips, and scanned the Odaiba section of the bleachers.

Just as he expected to, he spotted several other Digi-Destined children sitting about halfway up the bleachers on the Odaiba side. He was about to credit them for at least sticking together, if not for having the common sense to know when to give up, when he heard his own name come from that very area. He couldn't tell which child it was exactly, but the voice was feminine and there were only two girls up there, so the choices were limited. Ken felt his tiny smile twisting into a tiny smirk.

"Nice friends you got there," he said. Motomiya's expression clouded momentarily into confusion, and then pleasure at the perceived compliment. _Typical. He can't even tell when he's being insulted._

It was at that moment that Ken decided to have a bit of fun with Motomiya. It was also at that moment when the whistle blew and Ken's teammate kicked the ball into play.

Ken wasn't sure what his team had been doing during the first half when he wasn't around, since the basic rule of Tamachi was "get the ball to Ichijouji." Ken was fully aware that the rest of his teammates were only middling capable of even playing the game, much less implementing strategy or pulling off anything clever with the ball. At least they were adequate to the task of passing him the ball. Usually.

Thirty seconds later, the black-and-white soccer ball slammed into Odaiba's goal net. Odaiba's defenders stared in stunned silence, as if unable to believe that the game had been tied up so swiftly; Ken guessed that this was exactly what was going through their minds. Casting his gaze toward Motomiya, Ken found him near the edge of the field, wearing the same look of parted-lip disbelief that had become rather familiar to him throughout their many skirmishes in the digital world. Motomiya wore it well, Ken thought. It looked good on him.

Considering the incredibly low opinion Ken held of his own team, it should not be surprising that he was less than impressed with Odaiba. After all, they had only managed to score _one single goal_ on the losers who backed up Ken; it was Ken's view that well-trained dogs could probably have done better. While it didn't do to underestimate an opponent, it was equally lethal to _over_estimate one, and as the game progressed, Ken found himself relaxing easily into the rhythm of it. The Odaiba defense tightened up considerably in an effort to keep Ken away from their half of the field, and subsequent goals took slightly longer to score. Ken even occasionally had to employ the rest of his team for something other than passing him the ball straight away. However, it all remained laughably simple, and Ken found it unexpectedly enjoyable. Almost like playing a game of Go Fish to take a break from Go. He found himself toying shamelessly with Motomiya, pulling off elaborate little tricks in the other boy's vicinity, daring him to try something similar. It became more a game of keep-away than a game of soccer.

He would not admit to himself that the main reason he was enjoying himself was because he was playing against Motomiya Daisuke, playing against him in what he considered to be a lighthearted game of no lasting value whatsoever, rather than the deadly serious clashes they usually had.

Ken also figured out something about Motomiya about twenty minutes into the half - his team was his weakness. Motomiya wasn't a bad soccer player, in fact he was really quite good. However, he insisted on cooperating completely with the rest of his team, and the rest of his team wasn't nearly as skilled. In Motomiya, Ken saw a pack animal, one for whom "success" meant the success of his group, rather than personal success.

Working toward the success of one's collective group, an extremely valued concept in Japanese culture, was disdained by Ken as being unnecessarily altruistic and self-limiting. He was better than everyone around him; why should he allow human baggage to ride to the top on his coattails? Motomiya was letting those around him drag him down, and while Ken could respect him for his tenacity, he simultaneously despised the other boy for his lack of independence.

The idea that he had figured out a vital truth about Motomiya that Motomiya himself probably wasn't aware of pleased Ken. In fact, it pleased him so much he lost his focus on the game.

The next thing he knew, there were only fifteen seconds left on the clock. Tamachi was up nine goals over Odaiba's lonely one, and Ken was racing to make it a nice round ten when someone dropped into his field of view out of nowhere, attempting to tackle the ball out of his possession. Had Ken's mind been where it should have been, instead of patting itself on the back over this revelation about Motomiya, this wouldn't have presented a problem. As it was, Ken tripped inelegantly over the other player's foot, over the ball, and over his own momentary loss of coordination, and went face-first into the ground. A few seconds later, the whistle blew to signal the end of the game.

Cursing himself violently in his mind, Ken lay there on the ground and seethed. A minute ago, he was comfortably warm from his exertions, feeling in control of himself and the game, and smug over having figured out Motomiya. Now that the ground had brought him to an abrupt halt, he felt overheated and sweaty, his palms and knees were scraped and they stung from where he'd tried to catch himself, one of his wrists hurt from taking the majority of his weight and momentum when he fell, and people were laughing at him. He knew they were laughing at him because they were laughing period.

It never occurred to Ken that they might be laughing about something else, such as having won the game. Ken had been laughed at enough that it was natural for him to assume that any amusement going on in the vicinity was at his expense.

Careful not to put too much weight on his sore wrist, Ken picked himself up off the field and moved slowly over toward the rest of his team. They were celebrating, of course, and so he held back from them a bit; he was interested in their self-serving congratulations even less than he was interested in the teasing he was certain was going to come from his having fallen on his face. It didn't surprise him when none of them attempted to lure him into their little revel - he had managed to cultivate an air of cool stand-off-ishness with the other children who attended Tamachi Elementary. They were beneath him. At least, that's what he told himself. It hurt less than the truth.

"Hey Ken!"

Ken turned around to glance over his shoulder. Motomiya was running up toward him, and Ken stiffened automatically, prepared for a verbal assault. Throughout the many conflicts Ken had fought against Motomiya, the other boy had never proved to be very gracious, either in winning or losing, usually ending an encounter by throwing some kind of verbal barb in Ken's direction. Ken had no reason to believe that things would be any different at the end of a soccer game than at the end of a match in the digital world.

However, Motomiya surprised him, on three counts. "Hey, is your leg all right?" he asked, looking somewhat embarrassed as he faced Ken. "Sorry about that tackle, I guess I caught you off-guard."

Ken, surprised that Motomiya had been the one to trip him, and even more surprised that he was apologizing for it, glanced down and got the biggest surprise of all when he saw that his shin was bleeding beneath a nasty slice in his sock. Now that his attention had been drawn to it, Ken found that his leg was starting to hurt; Motomiya's cleats must have clipped him cleanly, but fairly hard. He decided to look at it later, and glanced back at Motomiya with the intention of just staring at the other boy until he grew uncomfortable and went away.

Unfortunately for this plan, Motomiya was wincing slightly in sympathy as he looked down at the wet blood that was turning Ken's green sock black. He really did look - and sound - sorry for having injured Ken. There was no deceit in Motomiya's expression, nothing hidden in the corners of his words. He wasn't laughing at Ken's graceless fall.

An autonomic response engaged, reacting to the fact that Motomiya appeared to genuinely feel bad about having tripped up Ken. "That's okay," said Ken. "I barely felt it. My mind must have been on something else, like scoring goals."

Motomiya's face brightened, Ken's offhand forgiveness secured. Ken marveled at how this small thing seemed to alter the shorter boy's entire demeanor, changing him from remorseful back to friendly. "So I guess you heard then, about how great I was doing before you showed up. Your team probably told you about how unstoppable I was, dominating the field and all."

_Not to mention modest._ "Some of them might have mentioned something about it." Ken took a stab in the dark then; it seemed logical. "You were the one who scored that goal on us, right?"

"I sure did!" Motomiya looked up at Ken with a bashful grin.

Ken nodded a little, his lip curling into a half-smile. "Keep practicing then, and someday you might win a championship."

Motomiya colored slightly. It required so little to please him ... "Well, you know, after you came into the game and you guys got so far ahead, I figured what the heck, it was all or nothing. So I just went for it on that last play. I guess I got carried away."

He was still apologizing? Ken wondered what would happen if he stroked the boy's ego a bit more. "I never even saw you coming. That play never fails."

"It did against me!" Motomiya drew himself up in his conceit, looking not unlike a prize gamecock, crest and all.

"So it did," agreed Ken easily. This little game was at least as interesting as any soccer match, or knock-down-drag-out in the digital world. There was something very satisfying about playing with Motomiya's pride, with having the _power_ to do this to him. The other boy clearly admired him greatly, and Ken's approval, which Ken could give away for free, was being taken by Motomiya and cherished like a holy relic. The irony of this, the fact that Motomiya obviously didn't know that it was the _Digimon Kaizer's_ opinion that he was placing in such esteem, appealed to Ken enormously.

"Well," said Ken, offering his hand for a friendly handshake. The gracious winner to the gracious loser. "Until we meet again, my worthy adversary, in battle."

That confusion clouded Motomiya's face again for just a moment; Ken's careful choice of words wasn't what he'd expected to hear. Then the sunny grin was back as the other boy shrugged off the peculiar phrase and clasped Ken's hand in his own.

This wasn't the first time Ken had touched Motomiya Daisuke, but it was the first time he hadn't been wearing gloves for it, and the first time they'd shaken hands. He was surprised by how soft Motomiya's hand was, and conversely how strong his grip was. Strength concealed within weakness. Ken considered this strangely fitting.

"Hey, Ken!" came his coach's voice. "You coming?"

Ken withdrew his hand. "I have to go," he said.

Motomiya nodded, looking like he'd just gotten a benediction from the gods themselves. Without another word, Ken turned picked up his duffel bag, and followed his team up the steps toward the bus that would carry them back to Tamachi.

As Ken was settling his duffel bag under his seat (he never put it in the overhead compartment, as things had a tendency to wander into or out of it if he let it out of his sight), one of his teammates plopped down next to him. "Hey, Ichijouji," he said.

Ken barely looked at him. His name was Satsuma, and he was part of the old money crowd that attended Tamachi Elementary. When Ken first joined the team, he'd made an effort to become Ken's friend; suspicious of Satsuma's motives, Ken had roundly rebuffed him. Later, Ken had learned that his instincts had led him wisely in this case, and that Satsuma had been put up to it by some of the other kids. Learning that he'd been correct in not trusting Satsuma had been almost as painful as the intended prank. A wave of anger hit him, accompanying Satsuma's presence like a cloud of bitter perfume.

Undeterred by Ken's stony silence, Satsuma leaned back in the seat as if Ken had given him a warm welcome. "So, did you get the pictures back yet from your trip?" said the boy.

Ken looked out the window, not speaking.

"It was really cool of you to make time in your busy schedule to come rescue us from the jaws of defeat. That Motomiya kid probably would have whipped all our asses single-handedly if not for the great Ichijouji-sama! How'd the ground taste?" Some of the other boys sitting behind the two of them started to laugh. Ken began to wish, and not for the first time, that he could bring Digimon through to the real world with him. For a few seconds, he entertained himself with fond thoughts of Airdramon and Tyrannomon ripping Satsuma into tiny pieces that scattered away on the wind like deleted Digimon.

"Looks like Motomiya found a fool-proof way to get you where he wanted you," Satsuma persisted.

Ken's Digivice went off then, beeping wildly, and Ken fished around in his duffel bag while the other children laughed until he found it and silenced it. It had been doing that a lot of late, usually when he was upset and occasionally when he was under attack by hostile Digimon, and he wasn't sure what it meant. He only knew that it was damned inconvenient to have such noisy attention drawn to himself when he was already on the edge of either tears or murder. The other children assumed it was a pager, and that was fine by Ken. Usually.

_I'm not in the mood for this,_ he thought. Actually, he was never in the mood for it, but he especially wasn't today. Ken stood up and picked up his duffel bag, throwing it over his shoulder again as he walked back off the bus, trying not to hear the comments that followed his retreat.

"Where you going, Ken?" asked his coach, who had been standing outside the bus talking to one of the referees.

"I just remembered something else I have to do," Ken bit out, not looking back to see if the coach bought this or not, too enraged to care.

Some of the spectators were still milling around the area, so Ken started walking away from the field, the sunset on his left hand and reflecting off the river. Sometimes he really wished he could turn invisible; other times, he wished he could stand at the top of the Tokyo Tower and declare himself the new Emperor of Japan as well as Emperor of the Digiworld. Lately, Wormmon had been pestering him more than usual, trying to get him to talk about his life in the real world. Ken had come close to blinding the little annoyance just last week over that very issue. He didn't want to talk about his life. He didn't want to think about his life. He really didn't much care to live his life.

A small footbridge crossing over a particularly busy intersection attracted Ken's attention, and he climbed up it and leaned on the railing, looking down at the passing vehicles. The wind that rose from the river of steel smelled strongly of oil and gasoline, familiar scents to an urban-bred boy who rarely set foot on something other than pavement and never willingly traveled outside the city. At least, not in the real world. He set his duffel bag down beside him, melancholy settling over him now that his rage at the other children was fading. Watching the sun slip down beneath the skyline of the city and holding his injured wrist, Ken fought the tightness in his throat which was the only physical symptom of his misery.

None of the customary images comforted him right now. Ken frequently imagined himself as being a diamond, set apart because of its precious nature from the common stones around it, or being like the first amphibian who dared the scorn of its peers to creep up onto dry land and witness the new world there. Usually, he could make himself feel better that way, convince himself that it was okay to be so different, so alienated from everyone around him. Loneliness would transform into freedom, the freedom to _act_ where others could not, the freedom to _be_ what others could not. Today, it wasn't working.

Today, he had seen admiration in the eyes of his enemy, and he wanted to see it again. And again. And again. Forever. He didn't want to be separated from everyone else, if that meant he was also to be separated from Motomiya.

Speaking of whom ... Ken's focus altered immediately upon hearing that familiar, loud tone coming from back behind him down the street, melancholy slipping away as more immediate concerns came to the fore. He stepped back a little from the railing, almost unconsciously cloaking himself in the deepening shadows of evening as Motomiya and the pack of kids who had cheered for him (and for Ken) came into view. Motomiya had a small blue object on his head that looked not unlike a tiny version of his partner Digimon; Ken wondered briefly where he'd acquired it. Some of the others also had toys with them, but none of them looked as much like Digimon as the blue one with Motomiya.

For just an instant, Ken wondered what would happen if he walked down onto the sidewalk and went with them to wherever they were going. Encountered outside of the digital world, Motomiya had seemed nice enough, almost respectful when compared against the Digiworld version of himself, and definitely when compared against the boys Ken had to deal with every day. Perhaps Ken had misjudged all the Digi-Destined. Perhaps they viewed their little conflict with the Digimon Kaizer in the same light he viewed his conflict with the Digi-Destined. Perhaps they would accept him into their little wolf-pack, the way they'd clearly accepted Motomiya. Perhaps, outside of the game, they could be friends.

Then the group moved into easy earshot. They were talking cheerfully with each other as they walked toward residential Odaiba, laughing sometimes at comments that were too low for Ken to hear. Too low to hear, except for the sound of his own name. "Mumble mumble Ichijouji mumble," one of the Digi-Destined said, and they all giggled merrily at whatever that had been about. Even Motomiya laughed.

Ken's back teeth ground together.

End of Part I


End file.
